In five years, London's Event Tech Live has grown from a small local gathering of event technology aficionados into a vibrant, multi-faceted, global hub for education, investment, and ideas in the burgeoning field of event-related applications, platforms, devices, and services. In tandem with the Event Technology Awards, it has overcome the challenge of naysayers to become one of the most publicized and diverse conferences in the industry.

The Brief: In the future, exhibition organizers will have to think and act beyond four walls. A well-known strategy firm calls it an Exhibition 2.0 model. But rather than piecemeal technologies and data points together to build new products and a broader value proposition, organizations need a system for connecting and activating the data they already have. Welcome to The Nexus.

Small organizations, nonprofits, hobby groups, and weekend event warriors don’t often have the budget for software to automate community and event management. Many turn to social media apps and free tools to get the job done. So when a mobile app comes along with the backing of a company known as the Google of Korea and it’s free, it’s worth taking a look.

Influencer marketing has proven effective to grow attendance for all types of live events. But many b2b exhibitions and conferences suffer from the lack of association with big name celebrities. Those sorts of opportunities have to be purchased. Rachel Stephan thought of another way to leverage social networks to build an audience—distribute the influence from many micro-influencers. It's what she calls the snowball effect.

Effective networking is no small feat for event attendees. Despite help from software and mobile apps to suggest matches, set up meetings, and locate peers, successful connections often fail to materialize. Smart badges can simplify the networking process and jumpstart meaningful conversations.

Website visitors and attendees can provide critical insight into how effectively organizers market and execute their exhibitions or conferences. The metrics used to measure effectiveness can be accessed through a dashboard (in an event management solution), Google Analytics (a free platform), or a post-show attendee survey. Understanding how to use these tools can help planners evolve their events year round.

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